I love hollyhocks. For years I sprouted the cultivar ‘Summer Carnival’ indoors from seed. It’s an AAS Winner that blooms the first year you plant it. Park Seed used to sell separate colors of red, rose, yellow and pink, but now ‘Summer Carnival’ is only available as a mix.
They are supposed to max out at about 5 feet tall, but my plants often grew to over 8 feet tall—a real conversation piece in the garden. Bumblebees loved visiting the large blooms and would also use them for refuge at night and during rain storms. The plants attracted hummingbirds too.
Like many other plants I adore, hollyhocks are a favorite of Japanese Beetles. I’ve seen the beetles defoliate trees like birches and crabapples in our neighborhood, but usually in my garden they are most destructive to flower blossoms, not foliage. That’s not the case with hollyhocks. They strip the leaves and flowers bare. When you’re trying to discourage Japanese Beetles from coming to your garden, it’s best not to grow 8-foot tall snacks for them, so I regretfully added them to the list of plants I don’t grow anymore.
If the beetle populations ever level off, you can be sure that these stately beauties will once again tower over my garden.